So how come Australia is still locked down?

[Teddypops]

So Australia has approx 20 new cases a day and barely no deaths.

So how come they are still locked down?

[Flaxmeadow]

Stop trying to defend the UK's response which has been disgraceful

No I will not stop defending my country and I will not stop defending our neighbours, France, Spain and Italy either. Who made almost the exact same decisions as we did at the same time in the number of cases/deaths.

It's easy to point the finger in hindsight at us all, from some far off back water, but come on then? What is disgraceful? What have we done that is so disgraceful

[FortunesFave]

In South Australia we've not actually BEEN in lockdown.

There were no official restrictions on how often people went out...or shopped.

[eaglejulesk]

It's easy to point the finger in hindsight at us all, from some far off back water, but come on then? What is disgraceful? What have we done that is so disgraceful

If the UK has done so well then why is the rest of the world holding their hands up in horror at their response? You had more time to act than many other parts of Europe and did - nothing.

[BaruFisher]

On the 1st of February Australia stopped incoming flights from Wuhan.
On the 19th of March our government announced that from the following day, only Australian citizens and permanent residents could come into the country. Those people would have to self isolate for 14 days. (The same day as Cheltenham went ahead).
On the 27th March Aussie arrivals had to go into quarantine in hotels in their city of arrival for 14 days enforced by the police and at the government’s cost preventing more widespread transmission to the regions.
Some Individual states have closed their borders to interstate travel.

This is despite our low population density, despite being much further away than the U.K. from Italy which had become the centre of infection at that time (March)
It was because we acted at this early stage that testing and contact tracing were successful in suppressing the spread and keeping community transmission low.

No one is gloating at the situation in the U.K. many of us have close family there. All of us are horrified to see the situation unfold. However failing to acknowledge the places where mistakes have been made means your government learn nothing from this debacle. People cheerleading Boris and his team teach them they acted correctly- how can anyone see this level of death as acceptable when it could have been minimised by the swift action that has worked in other countries- not just Australia but other more populous nations like Taiwan, Germany and Vietnam have shown testing and contact tracing work.

This thread started as a specific question about Australia which posters have answered. Somehow this has brought out the ‘defend Boris at all costs brigade’. I don’t live in the U.K. I care little about Boris and the Tories but it saddens me to see a situation there that could have been suppressed earlier and that some people will use every reason in the book to try and prove that those deaths were okay and that the government holds no responsibility.

[HoppingPavlova]

I’m not sure our lockdown has been what you consider a lockdown. When I talk to people in the UK ours sounds nothing similar.

The Govnt shut down beaches and theoretically at public parks there was not to be a gathering, but if so police just asked people to move it along. They shut restaurants and cafes to sit down service and made it takeaway/home delivery only. They also cracked down in ‘unnecessary travel’ over Easter but that was the only time it’s been monitored as far as I have heard. We have done long trips and the roads were always quite full. Shopping centres around us all heaving, teeming with people. There is a limit on people waiting/using shops based on a square meter approach but pretty meaningless as that’s just inside a shop, in open areas and walkways of malls the shops are in it’s quite crowded. I’ve found it a lot harder to get parking when out now than pre-Covid.

Only difference is lots of people working from home (recommended if you can), so roads in peak hour are quite and no squish on public transport. So city metro office areas are deserted but local housing areas teeming. I had a kid go to local oval the other day to exercise as they often do. They were home 10mins later as said they couldn’t get a park and oval was full to bursting. Pre-Covid they would be the only car there and have it to themselves. We are an area where the vast majority would have large backyards (enough for kid game of soccer/cricket) so not as though people can’t get fresh air.

[LeGrandBleu]

Until recently, the only deaths reported in UK were the ones happening in hospitals, not at home or in aged care homes. Has this changed?

[SailingAwayIntoSunrise]

from some far off back water

Ah, there's the true British 'fuck you'

I'd personally rather be in this far off back water than the UK at the moment.

[Biscuit0110]

baru I don't think it would have made much of a difference. We don't just have flights to contend with as you have in Oz, we have Eurostar trains coming in and out of London all day long that are connected to every European city. It is packed full of people travelling all over the world. We have the channel tunnel linking us by cars that takes just 15 minutes to France, and ferries that run day and night to almost every port to Europe, running daily crossings packed full of day trippers and those on holiday.

It is not as simple as just close the airports and all will be well.

[HoppingPavlova]

Yeah, agree the big difference is we closed our international border earlier than UK. There had also been state based border closures but obviously that can only be monitored by main road exits in and out, if people wanted to dodge they could, would just involve a workaround involving a lot more distance. But again, pretty easy as most interstate travel is by air and that was all stopped.

[BaruFisher]

Of course biscuit you are closer to Europe and therefore have a wider range of transport options. Could all have been stopped?
Could passenger details have been taken to check if people were self isolating?
Could enforced quarantine have been announced discouraging people from arriving at all?

Even if none of the above were done, the government failed at testing and contact tracing. That isn’t a judgement on the people of the U.K. but it’s current government.

[Biscuit0110]

UK is very well connected to all of Europe.
20 trains a day to Paris alone. Trains travel to trains direct to Paris, Brussels, Lille, Disneyland Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the South of France, and Calais, as well as our connecting destinations in France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Germany and beyond.

You can drive to Europe in 20 minutes via an channel tunnel.

Even if you were looking just at the trains, driving options and sea travel you would see that locking down the UK is not as simple as closing the airports!

[Flaxmeadow]

If the UK has done so well then why is the rest of the world holding their hands up in horror at their response?

Because that's what they always do? if they are doing it, I'm not so sure but thanks for joining in

You had more time to act than many other parts of Europe and did - nothing.

We had 10 days to act. We were 10 days behind Italy. And only about 4 days behind France. We are probably more comparable to France than any other country. Why would that be do you think? Might it be geography. Is it possible that there was no stopping this thing as soon as it hit poor old Lombardy.

We did almost exactly the same as other European countries. Locked down at the same time as numbers rose, and have lower per capita deaths than Belgium, Italy and Spain. So why are you not having a go at them? Not that I think you should anyway, but why are you singling the UK out in particular

[Flaxmeadow]

I'd personally rather be in this far off back water than the UK at the moment

So would I

[Biscuit0110]

baru You can't easily stop the trains, because people live in Paris and work in London and visa versa. You might say would you be happy to stop the trains travelling from Melbourne to Sydney.

The Eurostar continued, as did the ferries and only stopped being full once full lockdown was imposed.

We are intrinsically linked, and one might add we were originally supposed to follow the Swedish model.

We have to remember that without a vaccine we will all catch coronavirus, no one anywhere has immunity.

Every country in the world will have to face a very hard decision at some point, continue in a lockdown or open up and allow it to spread in a controlled way that can be managed by healthcare systems. No country is exempt.
It will spread, maybe more slowly in less populated areas, but spread it will anyway as there is no way out around it unless you are prepared to lockdown indefinitely.

[Flaxmeadow]

Until recently, the only deaths reported in UK were the ones happening in hospitals, not at home or in aged care homes. Has this changed?

Yes it changed on the 30th of April, the same day as Italy started recording their outside hospital deaths as well. I'm not aware of any other Western European countries that are doing it, but they might be

They were also backdated and added to previous weeks

[BaruFisher]

Biscuit I have no doubt your situation is more complex. All the more reason to ensure testing and contact tracing were done rigorously.
I agree with the long story we don’t know yet how this will pan out- we know the second wave in 1918 was worse. Hopefully when numbers get down to a more manageable level the government will introduce that rigorous testing and contact tracing to prevent it from being as bad in the U.K., Australia and everywhere.

[Biscuit0110]

May I add that Belguim is the worst hit country in Europe. It has a shocking mortality rate of 66 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

Why doesn't anyone care about Belgium? I would feel pretty bloody irritated if I lived there about the complete lack of global concern. Are they somehow less important?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52491210

[BaruFisher]

I’m sure people with connections to Belgium are. I have close family in England, Northern Ireland and the Republic so they are the places I am concerned about most along with Australia.

[Goatymcgoaty]

Trouble is we are not yet at the place where we can “post-mortem” the whole pandemic with hindsight. It could be that the UK response comes out as preferable - if a second more deadly wave hits and a lot of the uk are immune, that could be a good thing. If a second more deadly wave gets into Aus/NZ and there is no immunity it could devastate quickly. No one knows yet.

Only when there is an effective treatment / vaccine established, can the world look back and apply hindsight, see who did what well.

[Biscuit0110]

baru Have you actually thought this through?
Have you any idea at all about contact tracing for 66 MILLION people??!!! It just can not be done in a few weeks. It requires thousands and thousands of tracers. You can't set up contact tracing in a few weeks, it is just impossible.

Our government chose to put resources and given the time limits into ensuring the healthcare delivered, and on that they succeeded. There was no time to set up contact tracing for 66 million people in the time frame. I can't believe you have even suggested this.

We now have an app that will be used, and hopefully is being road tested and will work. That was is our best hope, and it has taken months to set up. We do have such things have privacy laws here, and rights. You can't get enforce it in democracies like ours. It also needs to be safe from hackers etc.

With all due respect, I don't think you are really able to grasp the scale of this.

[BaruFisher]

I’m not talking about contact tracing at the height of the pandemic biscuit- of course that would be an impossible task. I’m talking about when the first case was diagnosed- and hopefully later when you have new cases in the single or double figures in each county after the suppression of lockdown.

[Biscuit0110]

We have also developed a vaccine, the results have been very encouraging, it will be available in 12 weeks, and then it will be rolled out if successful. We have seen great progress in treating coronavirus with drugs too. It is not all bad news. Oxford are a leading light, and I am hopeful of a proper solution in the near future.

[BaruFisher]

We also have an app up and running- I’m hoping it will be helpful here too.
We also have privacy laws- new cases were asked about where they had been (as best they could remember) in the previous 14 days. If they were places with big footfall (a workplace, arriving flight etc) public health alerts were used.

[Biscuit0110]

baru We have contact tracing with the first thousand cases, but after that it is pointless. The app is everyone's best bet, and is available in ten days all being well.

[Bool]

@Biscuit0110 because people seem to think that people outside the UK are all looking at the UK and caring. They aren’t!!!! It’s all in British people’s heads. I read the below up thread and laughed.

If the UK has done so well then why is the rest of the world holding their hands up in horror at their response? You had more time to act than many other parts of Europe and did - nothing.

Do people in this country really think that people in other countries care enough to look at the UK in horror. Even if the UK bad worse figures than Spain, Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands etc then maybe. But we don’t!!! On most measures we are better. There are actually criminal investigations happening in Spain as to how the carers abandoned the homes. Australia is a totally different demographic and geographical position to Europe. How and why do we even want to compare? Do people in Australia who are brits like to justify why they live there and not here? Is there some kind of weird rivalry going on? Reading some of these comment it looks so. Good for Australia if they have kept deaths down. That’s brilliant. I still would rather be in the UK but that’s my own personal view. And anyway so what. Why does that matter? Plus the fact this is just the beginning. Speaking to some Australian friends the other day - the worry now going into winter is a second peak. So before we all get off on comparing let’s just wait and see and maybe have a bit more understanding, empathy and support for one another - rather than all this bloody parochial nationalistic bravado.